


Becoming: Florida

by Churbooseanon



Series: For Every Action, A Reaction [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3522719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before he was an Agent of Project Freelancer, he was a first rate assassin. The job chance was because of a coincidence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming: Florida

Truth be told, Butch had never liked jobs on small colony worlds on the front lines of the war. His sphere of comfort was the Sol System colonies, and so more often than not he stuck to his small corner of space and let the work come to him. There was less of a chance of him being put in a position to be, say, accidentally killed in a planetary glassing. 

But whoever wanted Sergeant Abigail Hearns dead had been far from kidding. Flowers had no clue just what motivating the client, but truth to be told, he couldn’t care less. The money had been more than sufficient, and the request had been for a simple, short term, one-then-done job. Best thing had been that she was just a silly UNSC Marine Corp Sergeant who had home leave for reasons, and he could just kill and get paid. 

It wasn’t his fault, not in the slightest, that the day before he made his move the woman had boarded a military transport and headed forward. Nor was it his fault that his own arrival had happened weeks later. That was just how transit worked, and forging papers and getting the gear to look like a basic enlisted man going forward had taken time. Thus he was here, standing over a long black bag, cleaning off a knife and sighing. This job had taken far too long already, and brought him too far from his comfort zone, but it was nice to hit his three-hundredth kill. Milestones were always so pleasing. 

Knife cleaned and returned to it’s wrist sheath, Butch sighed and looked around the room assigned to the Sergeant. It was so small it was practically a closet, but he thought she’d done a good job of making it hers anyway. The rifle rack in the corner was a particularly nice touch. Okay, no, this place had no real promising qualities to it, but he thought it was nice to be as polite as possible to the dead. After all, it wasn’t her fault that he had been the one sent after her. Yes, likely her own fault that she was dead now, but that didn’t mean he had to hold it against her. 

No hard feelings really. 

Still, there was a lot of cleanup to be done on a job like this. His wealthy… benefactor had made it clear that Sergeant Hearns was to disappear. That was the only stipulation on this job, and so Flowers could hardly choose to ignore it. He was paid and he delivered. 

With a sigh he moved around her small quarters, packing up things that looked particularly sentimental or personally important to the dead woman. Pictures, odds and ends, even what looked to be a favored gun all went into the bag before he started into drawers. Uniforms, check. The rare piece of civvie clothes, check. An official looking packet of papers with a strange logo on it, ch…

Flowers frowns at the heavy packet in his hands emblazoned with a series of logos. The UNSC logo, ONI-III, and there, at the end, one he’d never seen before. Likely the logo of another one of the latest secret projects the Office of Naval Intelligence was developing. Another mythic, ’magic bullet’ programs that were supposed to win the war. So why was Sergeant Hearns wanted by ONI?

Curiosity had never really hurt in the past, Butch mused as he twirled the packet in his fingers and moved to sit on the edge of her cot. He was going to have to make that before he went. Military precision too. That was never fun, but he would do it. After another moment he finally opened the packet and started pulling out papers. 

In the end he gets out almost two hours later than he’d intended. But the body got incinerated, the gear taken with him for disposal out of an airlock on the trip back to Earth, and Flowers into a quick messenger ship headed back to Earth. It would take a few days, but he’d still have time to put together the plan he intended to execute.

* * * * * *

Surprisingly the hardest part isn’t the getting onto the research ship, The Mother of Invention. Cute joke there, just so it was said. Anyway, the hardest part wasn’t stowing away on a shuttle bound for the vessel in orbit around the moon. Nor was it ghosting around the ship for a full day to get the credentials to get to the core of the ship where the higher ups had their quarters. Such a thing wouldn’t be so hard planetside. As it was there was a force working against him here. 

All ships of this size have an AI. And truth be told, things could be worse if this ship’s AI catches him. How would he prove himself worthy of a program like this without showing his worth? 

But with the AI’s attention elsewhere, the credentials are easily enough acquired. Which led to him here, sitting cross-legged on the set of drawers next to the bed, and the perfect opportunity. Getting into the room of the Director of the program without rousing the AI had been hard, had required some damage to some important systems. Get the eyes that were everywhere focused elsewhere. 

Flowers balanced a folder on his fingertips, contemplating the perfect way to do this. The file had taken so little to put together. All he’d had to do was assemble the bits of jobs he knew the police could collar him for, add the Interpol file he was quite proud of (in no small part because of the additions he’d surreptitiously added years ago on a beautiful break in job), and get it all printed out on official letterhead. Which didn’t seem to be bursting from the walls here, which made him even more excited. An interesting research program such at this one, another ONI-III research group and it didn’t want records?

Sounded just up his alley. 

At last he decided that showy was the best way. Always was to be honest. So Florida tossed the file and delighted inwardly at the terrified yelp of the other man as he woke from the sudden contact. And even that wasn’t the end. Within what had to be less than a nanosecond from the noise there was a brilliant white light filling the room as the ship’s AI made itself known from some holo-projector or another. 

“Hey dickhead, can’t you…”

There was nothing so satisfying as being able to surprise a supposedly all seeing, all knowing AI aboard it’s own ship. 

“I swear to god, if you lay a hand on him, I’ll throw this ship out of orbit and give a trajectory to guarantee that it will burn up,” the AI threatened, his glow getting distinctly red. 

It was good to see that what was rumored about AIs, namely their protectiveness of their crews, was indeed true. He would love to have some of that protectiveness in his own corner. 

“Alpha?” the man in the bed asked as he sat up, staring from the file in on his chest to the crimson light, and eventually around to Flowers. “What is going on?”

“Butch Flowers, reporting for duty, sir,” Flowers answered cheerfully, throwing a half-hearted salute at the man. 

“Who? What?”

Of course his questions were drowned out by the continuing tirade from the AI, Alpha apparently.

“Seriously, I can let the rest of the crew get to evac pods, and if you tried to get in one, I could lock it down and sabotage launch protocols, remove homing beacons, long story short you are going to fucking burn up in atmo if you so much as lay a hand on him.”

All Flowers could do was laugh at the whole situation. Which seemed to halt the other two. Maybe they hadn’t been expecting mirth. On top of everything else, of course. 

“Consider this my job interview if you must,” Flowers smiled as he bounced to his feet and walked right through the projection of the AI. 

“I don’t know who you are or where you come from…”

“It’s all in the file my dear Director,” Butch chuckled. “I’m going to go find that… Counselor I’ve heard about. Figure out my berthing, alright?”

“I don’t have a place for you,” Director Church called as he moved to the door. 

“Oh, about that,” he sighed sadly, turning around and holding his hands out in front of him in what he knew would be seen as an apologetic pose. “I’m afraid Sergeant Abigail Hearn will not be making it. Truly sorry. Anyway, I’ve got places to be while you review that file. Do have a good day, sir.”

As the door closed behind him he could hear the AI very loudly, very shrilly demand _what the fuck just happened?_ It was more than enough to leave him laughing all the way to the other room he had to break into. 

This was going to be fun.


End file.
